France’s Worst Hate Crime in Three Decades!

     I remember the day when the French media announced that the Jewish Deli Jo Goldenberg in the Paris Jewish quarters had been bombed, it was August 9, 1982. Two men entered the restaurant, threw a grenade and then emptied their machine guns randomly onto the patrons. Six people died and 22 were wounded in what was soon recognized as the worst Jewish death toll in France since World War Two.
     Then, two days ago, on March 19, the news came that an unidentified gunman had just shot 4 people at a Jewish school in the city of Toulouse in Southwestern France. A Rabbi from the school, his two sons and another girl were shot to their death by a man who came and went on a scooter. The civilized world is mourning the lives of these innocent people and I personally grieve for Rabbi’s Jonathan Sandler family.
     France is currently on high alert. This level of heightened security hasn’t occurred since post 9/11. A manhunt of national proportions is underway while French President Nicolas Sarkozy said that everything will be done to find the killer and bring him to justice. What a test for leadership within 90 days of the next presidential elections!
      “This is a national tragedy,” Sarkozy said at the Ozar Hatorah school. “Everything will be done to find who is responsible and to make him pay for his crimes. Hatred must not win.”
     In the meantime, many around the world and especially within the Jewish community are speculating as to the motives and/or agenda that drove the gunman to such a heartless, coldblooded massacre. Antisemitism is obviously the first thing that comes to mind when one recalls the horror that took place at the Jewish school. But we must resist the temptation to jump to conclusion out of a desire to show our compassion to our Jewish friends. A crime? Yes. A hate crime? Most certainly! beyond this we must be patient and let the authorities do their work.
     It would be very easy for someone like me to quickly draw the same conclusion of blatant anti-Semitism based on my years of research on the subject, yet, the French police, the French anti-terrorist units and the rest of the world do not have enough evidence to clearly paint that picture. And yet, there is more!
     It is now becoming pretty certain that the same killer was also responsible for deaths of two paratroopers in Montauban (30 miles away) on Thursday and one more in Toulouse a week prior. The shooting rampage was done by a man on a black scooter and the same weapon was identified in all the crimes.
     I am still reluctant to label this carnage solely as an antisemitic crime because the other victims were from the Northwest African region known as the Maghreb and from the Caribbean. Was the killer racist? no question in my mind! Was he deranged? I think he was, considering that he had strapped a recording device on his chest and possibly recorded the whole event! Was it an act of antisemitism? Time will tell and hopefully we won’t have to wait too long to be able to determine if this act was from a radical Islam agenda, a right-wing Neo nazi agenda or simply a mad man on a serial killing rampage.
     No matter what we find out, the tragedy remains the same, and those left behind have a duty to fight and expose such hatred. This tragedy, if it proves to have been driven by pure hatred of the Jewish people will only confirm a sad reality that I already have known too well for over a decade now: France is no longer a safe for Jewish people!
     In the meantime, God, who never changes, is waiting for us to go to Him in prayer.
     My prayer is that the families of the victims (both the paratroopers and the Jewish family) would be comforted by God’s shalom at such a difficult time.
     It is hard for me to grasp such cruelty, but then again,
      The heart is more deceitful than all else and is desperately sick; Who can understand it? 
                                                                                                                      (Jeremiah 17:9)